I am a Senior Political Contributor at Forbes and the official 'token lefty,' as the title of the page suggests. However, writing from the 'left of center' should not be confused with writing for the left as I often annoy progressives just as much as I upset conservative thinkers. In addition to the pages of Forbes.com, you can find me every Saturday morning on your TV arguing with my more conservative colleagues on "Forbes on Fox" on the Fox News Network and at various other times during the week serving as a liberal talking head on other Fox News and Fox Business Network shows. I also serve as a Democratic strategist with Mercury Public Affairs.

The Corporate Blackmailing Of America Is Now All the Rage

For the past week, I have watched with amazement as one restaurant chain after another—the very people who peddle the high caloric foods laden with the fat and sugar that have contribute so mightily to the nation’s health problems and the resulting costs—announced their plans to cut back on employee work hours.

Why?

Because an employee who works less than 30 hours a week is not an employee at all for purposes of the Affordable Care Act. Thus, by cutting back work hours for dishwashers, servers, bussers, etc., these franchised chain restaurant operations can skirt the requirements of Obamacare by providing employees with less work.

Leading the way is Papa John’s pizza pusher-in-chief, John Schnatter, who has gone public in a big way decrying the damage Obamacare would do to his business.

So serious is the problem—Mr. Schnatter would have us believe—that he is being forced to cut back working hours for his workers to avoid the crushing costs of providing his beloved employees and their families with a healthcare plan or, alternatively, raise the price of his pizzas by $.14 a pie.

This is a national crisis. I mean, when it comes to buying a pizza, that $.14 is surely a deal breaker!

But let’s keep in mind the choice Schnatter is really offering us.

By avoiding the health care reform law through paying less to his employees as a result of cutting back their hours, Schnatter is only increasing the costs that you and I pick up when his employees—having no health insurance—show up at the emergency room for basic care because they have nowhere else to go. Thus, while Mr. Schnatter is deeply distressed by the notion of taking some responsibility for the health of the very employees who make his business work so that he can earn millions, he is perfectly happy to have you and I subsidize his profits by allowing us to pick up the cost of health care for his workers because he will not.

The result of Schnatter’s behavior—along with the other restaurant owners playing this game—is to leave it to me to subsidize Schnatter’s profits despite the fact that I am not a customer for his pizzas that find to be mediocre at best. I will be left to pay the bills for his employees’ health care needs and, as a result, contribute directly to his bottom line.

Not a bad deal for Mr. Schnatter. He gets to profit from someone like me despite my choice to not spend a dime in one of his restaurants. Nice work if you can get it but hardly what we would typically view as an example of free enterprise.

While this “three nickels a pie” charge would, apparently, be the final straw in driving you into the waiting arms of your neighborhood, non-franchised pizzeria (a pretty good idea if you ask me) it turns out that things might not be so dire for poor Mr. Schnatter after all.

In a brilliant article by Forbes’ own Caleb Melby —by the way, I have never been prouder of one of my Forbes colleagues—Caleb breaks down the real costs to Papa John’s, using hard, cold math to reveal a little truth. We learn, for starters, that the actual cost of the Affordable Care Act to Mr. Schnatter’s business runs much closer to 4 cents a pizza than it does to 14 cents. Could Mr. Schnatter be setting himself up to make a few extra pennies per pie using Obamacare as an excuse or is he simply exaggerating his plight to sell his political narrative?

Certainly, this is not the first time a new cost item has resulted in a small increase in the price of Mr. Schnatter’s product. However, I strongly suspect that it is the first time he has chosen to politicize a cost increase to make an ideological point. As a result, Caleb’s article serves to expose Schnatter for what he really is—an ideologue who would gladly put a metaphoric gun to the head of his employees, using them as pawns in the effort to sell his own political beliefs which, in the opinion of this writer, have no more substance nor taste than the pizzas he peddles. And if he can make a few extra bucks in the process? It’s all good then, right Mr. Schnatter?

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see this is what I’m talking about company CEO’s that just make asses of themselves, people work in their business’s, they make the company successful and then they get the shaft, what the hell is up with rich people how much money is enough? Why shouldn’t the people that work for you be treated decently? They are entilted to a decent living wage, a retirement fund and healthcare. I’m sure the Corporate employees have these “benefits” we’re not asking for a handout, we work hard for your companies, you should be happy to share the wealth, not spend your time and money trying to figure out how to get more out of us for less!!!!!!!!!!!!

His employees are free to look for other jobs if they do not like the CEO’s views or the company’s actions. Pizza jobs aren’t hard to find. Probably the only difference between Papa John and other pizza vendors is that he is announcing what he is doing and they are doing it silently.

Hey, dumb-@ss liberal, do you see just in this example why it does not work to force others into the mold you have assigned them? Do you get it yet? You aren’t special. You can’t dictate how others react even if you can write laws at will.

” Only after a corporation has met its obligations to its employees and society at large should a profit be permitted”

The very idea of ‘a profit being permitted’ is a contradiction. If you don’t know that you don’t know much at all. Not that it’s a surprise, considering that your post is self-righteous dictatorial nonsense from start to finish. Society can’t be molded into someone’s ideas of what is ‘right’, especially not commerce. Business can be ‘right’ as rain – but customers are what matters.

Yes, clearly I”m the dumbass. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m just an opinion writer. Last I checked, I don’t pass laws so your statement that I can’t dictate how others react is one heck of a dramatic statement of the obvious. You know, I used to think that while you may be a disagreeable sort, you were kind of smart. Lately, you’re exposing yourself to be something less than what I had hoped. Now it’s just all “dumb ass liberal” and stuff like that. Disappointing.

Jenny, do you really know what is in Obamacare? Have you really read any of the taxes and charges being laid on others in Obamacare? Do you own a business Jenny with close to or more than 50 employees?

Not all businesses are Papa John’s and any business with more than 50 employees or individuals with retained earnings over 200K will be taxed more. As you say it is currently “AT YOUR EXPENSE” but you approve of it being at someone else’s expense such as the small businesses that have generated jobs and provided health care to their employees? Medical device companies willnot pay an excise tax of 2.3 of total sales and I assume they should just take that new tax in stride for the common good of all and to keep YOU from helping pay for the uninisured?

Hey Mike, let me share my thoughts. AHC as i understand would increase cost for doing business. The impact would be more on labor intensive industries mainly the service industries like PJs. Businesses could argue that this effects their ability to be competitive. No labor intensive business in US could be competitive globally. That is why we have shipped those jobs to China and other countries. So lets say this impacts the businesses to be competitive within US. Now the employees in these industries are also consumers in similar industries. So if they are provided AHC, they would have some $$ to spare and hence consume more. The difference between savings rate in US and a country like China or India is the safety net. There folks consume less and save more due to lack of a safety net. Put differently, if the employees working in places like PJs were to be certain that health care expenses are covered, they would have more money to pay the increased cost of services they consume. Sounds like trickle down phenomenon ? Lets see who were the proponents of that !

I dislike what PJ did, since it was more of a political statement than business decision. ACH is not yet implemented and he has not waited even for a quarter to understand its impact. Since its a political statement, we as consumers have the right to express our thoughts as well.

Your argument would make sense had I argued that I objected to these companies passing along their increases to the consumer. I don’t have a problem with that. Papa John’s passes along the increases in the cost of dough to the consumer, yes? they pass along the cost of their labor, right? So, why would they deny their labor this benefit if not for the desire to make a political statement? Thus, your argument fails.

As an economics graduate, I am growing more and more impatient of people who say “no free lunch.”

That isn’t a statement on welfare, politics, etc. That just means that everything has a cost. It’s a basic concept of economics that any business’s output requires input. Similar, anything you want to consume will have some cost, whether that cost is money, time, physical effort, so on and so forth.

Fact: The current promotion is a bigger cost than providing health care. Guess: I’d bet Peyton Manning is a seven-figure sponsor. Fact: That $5-8 million annual cost came from Papa John’s, from that company. So in figuring how this could be worked out isn’t just a collection of data with a “liberal skew.”

And finally, ease up on the rhetoric. Inflammatory language, insults, condescension, and all that negativity is the biggest reason we are such a divided nation. There are good ideas to be had by most political philosophies, and maybe that would be more apparent if we didn’t exist in a foolish two-party system. A lot of people had to vote for the Affordable Care Act to pass, it’s not like Barack Obama just went “make it so.”